Welcome to my blog! I blog about the historical romances I write as well as the history behind them.

The Irony of the War With Austria

I love irony. Perhaps I’ve got a bit of cynic in me, but
when I find something ironic in history, I find it so satisfying. One of
my favorites is when I discovered during the last Presidential election that
Boston had once been bombarded from sea by the HMS
Romney. If you don’t find that at least a little bit funny, then we just
don’t have the same sense of humor.

with Austria. The irony of these three things
hit me as I was listening to

As though things hadn’t gotten bad enough in Paris during
the Revolution, in 1792, France declared war with Austria. As Prof. Susanne M.
Desan says in her lectures, there were several factions in France that wanted
to go to war, but for vastly different reasons:

Various revolutionary
factions because they thought it would weaken the king.

The Marquis de
Lafayette who was in charge of the Garde nationale (National Guard) because he
thought it would strengthen the king.

Louis XVI because he wanted to
lose the war and be rescued. Remember, Marie Antoinette was an Austrian.

Quick side note for those of you who are wondering
how Lafayette, the man who was so instrumental to the cause of liberty during
the American Revolution could be on the side of the king during the French
Revolution. Lafayette favored the revolution, but he wasn’t in favor of establishing
a republic like the Americans had. He actually wanted a constitutional monarchy
like the one in England.

You also have to keep in mind that the Americans,
at least at the beginning, were fine with the constitutional monarchy. They
simply wanted representation in

And, like many Frenchman, the Marquis might have
been at least a little bit inspired to help the American cause because it would
weaken the English. The English for their part, were either for or against the
French Revolution because of their views on whether it would weaken or
strengthen France. Turnabout is fair play, but the French Revolution being a
tad less…orderly than the American Revolution, there really wasn’t any
side to supply with ammunition or funds.

Back to the irony…

The war heated the passions and the paranoia
of the revolutionaries, and in the end Louis lost his head - literally. Hard to
say, but it’s possible that things might not have ended so badly for him had
France not gone to war.

Sentiments turned against Lafayette as well, and he
fled to Austria. Despite declarations of neutrality from Lafayette, he was
thrown in an Austrian prison for the next five years - a move that might very
well have saved his life.